


Learning to Fly

by hellowkatey



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [22]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Feels, Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka Tano is a Sibling to the Clones, Burns, Emotional Hurt, FebuWhump2021, Jedi as Found Family (Star Wars), Memories, Mentioned Anakin Skywalker, Mentioned CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives, Mentioned CT-7567 | Rex, Mentioned Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mentioned Plo Koon, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29649816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellowkatey/pseuds/hellowkatey
Summary: Ahsoka struggles with adjusting to her new life outside of the Jedi Order.[Febuwhump Day 22: burned]
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138259
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Learning to Fly

Ahsoka can do a lot of things.

Take out an entire battlement of battle droids on her own with two lightsabers and a shot of stim. 

Jump out of ships without a parachute. 

Install a hyperdrive in under five hours.

Fly a Delta-7 (though landing a Delta-7 is more of a maybe).

Do a triple backflip off the high rocks in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. 

Beat Rex in a hot dog eating contest. 

Survive being hunted for sport. 

Break into and out of the Citadel.

And yet...

She finds herself holding her hand under a stream of cold water, cursing at the blisters that are already forming across her palm. Because somehow Ahsoka Tano can efficiently kill four Mandalorians while still tied up, but taking a dish out of the oven is what brings her to her knees. Common sense should have led her to realize that grabbing the pan with her bare hand wasn't a very good plan, but she was distracted by trying to figure out how to reset her data router, which was blaring an annoying noise. 

Tears start to form in the corners of her eyes. Not from the sting of the burn, (it's practically a papercut next to the burn of a training saber) but because everything is just so _hard_. She didn't realize when she walked away from the Jedi Order just how difficult it would be.

She didn't expect it to be easy. She didn't expect to walk out into a galaxy she has never explored besides in the context of a battle and immediately succeed... but trillions of sentients across every system live on their own every day, don't they? So why is she struggling so much?

She turns off the water, wiping away the tears before they fall, dragging her feet as she walks to the little nest of blankets she calls her bed. The listing for this apartment said it was "cozy" and "modest", but Ahsoka has been in prison cells larger than this and with better accommodations. The kitchen is threadbare-- nothing more than a standalone reheater with a range cooker on top, and a refrigerator, but even those two appliances take up most of the wall space on that side of the room. The only other thing in her apartment is her "bed" and a pile of clothes in the center of it all because there is no closet or chest to put them in. Jedi don't really keep possessions-- and so she practically has nothing. 

And that's been her life since she left. Either sitting here, staring at the bland gray walls, moving that pile of clothes to a different location to see if it makes any difference (it doesn't), or walking the lower levels of Coruscant looking for some kind of work-- _any_ kind of work. But she runs into the problem again-- she can handle a lightsaber and fire a blaster and jump from high places, but when it comes down to it, she has no real skills to put on a resume to find work. No real experience besides maybe being a mechanic, but the places she did go by were weary to hire a young girl with no references. 

She cradles her hand in her lap, tracing along the edges of the raised, inflamed skin. It stings to the touch. Right about now she'd really kill for some bacta. Or even a sterile bandage. Or a clone medic cleaning her up while Master Skywalker stands as near as he can without Kix yelling at him. _Oh, Anakin,_ she thinks, those tears threatening to resurface. _What I wouldn't give to have you scolding me for being reckless while you wrap my hand in bacta strips._

Maybe that's what's missing from her barren apartment and barren life. It's not like her room on _The Resolute_ or in the Jedi Temple were any less plain, but at least she had Anakin barging in every few minutes to ask her questions or show her something he found on the holonet. Or Master Kenobi coming to get her with a cup of caff or tea when they had particularly early starts because he knows she is _not_ a morning person. 

Rex sitting next to her on the bunk while they read through the hilarious comments on the holonet of people thirsting after her master... and her grandmaster. 

Fives randomly opening her door and throwing in a brew to test her Jedi senses-- if she caught it, she got to join them down in the break room. 

Master Plo popping in after Zygerria and holding her as she finally sobbed over the stress of _everything_ that had happened. 

If Ahsoka wasn't crying before, she's crying now because _Force_ , her life as a Jedi wasn't anything extravagant but it was her life, and that was her family. And now she's sitting in an apartment with raggedy blankets for a bed and a pile of clothes in the center of her room as a closet. 

And she's alone. Actually, truly, alone. 

Somehow, when she was at the Temple or on the ship, she could be the only one in the room but not feel as though she was alone. She never realized the privilege of not knowing what it feels like to be lonely until now. Loneliness is a dull ache that starts as a tight knot in her stomach and slowly overtakes her entire body. It's an insidious virus, creeping into every cell of her being until it begins to fester and sting and pull her into a state of hazy numbness.

_Maybe I should have accepted their offer to return. Maybe I shouldn't have left so hastily._

They're thoughts that plague her every morning when she wakes up and every night when she tries to fall asleep. Maybe this, and maybe that, and maybe if she could go back she would make a different decision. Or maybe she would walk down those stairs again, leave Anakin holding her beads between his fingers all the same. 

Ahsoka grabs a clean shirt and tears off a strip at the bottom. She wraps her wound loosely, pausing to wipe away the stray tears that still leak from her eyes. Anakin isn't here. Neither is Master Kenobi or Rex or Fives or Plo Koon. There is no one but herself to tend her wounds, and that is just the way it is now. Ahsoka can do a lot of things, and learn to be on her own will have to be one of them. 


End file.
